Marbles
by Casix Thistlebane
Summary: Light side: Xander's lost his marbles.


Disclaimer: Characters belong to Joss, ME, Fox. Money isn't mine either. I just get to borrow it from time to time, often without permission. O.o  
  
Summary: Xander's lost his marbles.  
  
Author's note: I'll probably get back to writing Roads Less Traveled by the end of the weekend. For the moment, I just needed to write something light and absurd to balance out the dark side of insanity I went with in Roulette. Hope ya like it . . . .  
  
Marbles  
  
by Casix Thistlebane  
  
"What's he doing?"  
  
"I don't know," Dawn shrugged as Willow and Buffy stepped up next to her in the doorway of the living room. "But he's already gone through his car and his room."  
  
Xander was tearing through the cushions of the second-hand couch that lined one wall of the Cleveland based sitting room. His eyes were wild and he was muttering softly to himself about something being lost.  
  
"Is it another demon?" Buffy wore an expression of distaste. She'd rather liked that couch.  
  
"Dunno." Willow tilted her head as Xander grabbed the back of the couch and leaned over, peering behind it. "I could google his symptoms . . . ."  
  
Xander whirled on her, his cheeks burning red. "Your PC jargon has no effect on me!"  
  
Willow flinched back as Buffy dropped into a defensive crouch. "Xander,"  
  
"Sorry," Still flushed, he turned back to the couch. "Sorry. I have to find it. It's always in the last place you look, but I tried looking THERE already." He swung his legs up, gripping what was left of the cushions, and lowered himself to peer under the couch. "Would have been better with the butterfly."  
  
"What the hell is he talking about?" Buffy turned to her younger sister, who looked just as confused.  
  
"I don't know. But at his car he said the good news was, he saved a bunch of money on his car insurance."  
  
"He switched us all to Geico." Willow shrugged. "But that was a couple weeks ago, after Giles' car got totaled by that Kratha'a demon at city hall." She blinked as Xander put his hands on the ground, apparently giving up on the couch, and started walking on his hands toward the entertainment center. "I didn't know he could do that."  
  
"Neither did I."  
  
Xander muttered something about natural male enhancement, that set all three girls into furious blushes.   
  
"He's been kind of off since the superbowl." Dawn offered.  
  
"Yeah, that whole Janet Jackson incident really set him off. But not like this." Buffy started forward. "He's going to hurt himself."  
  
"Impossible is nothing!" Xander propped his feet against the wall, looking behind the entertainment center, before shoving off with his left foot and lowering his right toward the floor in a walk-over. His leg shook, then gave out, sending him crashing to the floor.  
  
For a moment, no one moved. Then the three girls rushed to his side, only to halt again as his left arm shot, fist pumping, into the air. "Obey your thirst!"  
  
"Now, really, what the devil is going on in here?" Giles arrived in the doorway, looking cross. Dawn turned to him, shrugged, then rotated her finger beside her temple in the universal gesture for "coo-coo".   
  
Xander was back on his feet again, opening and closing all the compartments of the entertainment center, and sending videos and DVDs flying in his search.   
  
"Xander," Willow called softly, trying not to startle him. "What'd you lose? Maybe we can help look?"  
  
Giles, taking in the state of the room, and the murmured word salad from Xander, decided it was time to clean his glasses. "I told that boy that television would rot his brain,"  
  
"Even Passions?" Dawn smirked. "You like Passions. And the Simpsons."  
  
"The Simpsons is an extremely intelligent program riddled with piercing social commentary." Giles huffed Britishly. "Though I'll admit Passions might be mind-numbing filth."  
  
"Of course!" Xander smacked himself in the forehead and crouched down in front of the TV. The other four exchanged looks, then turned back to see what he'd do next.  
  
He reached his hands out toward the screen. "It's faster than dial-up." He told them conspiratorally, then plunged his hands into the black surface.  
  
They all flinched back, but the expected electric explosion never came. Instead, Xander's hands disappeared, ghost like, while he waved his arms about for a moment, concentrating.  
  
"Ah." He stuck in head into the television after his hands. "Found it," came the muffled call of triumph. He slid himself back out, stood, and straightened his shirt.  
  
He turned to the other four with a satisfied, lucid smile. They stared at him. "What?"  
  
"All right, Xander, spill." Dawn crossed her arms. "What did you lose?"  
  
"My mind." He shrugged. "Should have known it was in there."  
  
Vi slammed into the room, gasping. "Guys, come quick, Andrew's lost his head."  
  
"Dammit," Xander followed after her. "I told him he needed to keep that thing screwed on,"  
  
Dawn, Willow, Buffy, and Giles were left alone in the living room. They exchanged a long, serious glance, then collapsed to the floor, laughing.  
  
The End  
  
Additional disclaimer (okay, it's really just a list of pop references): Hrm. I've got Geico, Enzyte, Dell, MSN, generic DSL, Adidas, and Sprite by way of commercial references. The whole "last place you look" thing was a paraphrase of Delirium's comment in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. Giles' rant about the Simpsons comes straight from my ninth grade history teacher, Mr. Berry. WEEEEEE! Bed now. 


End file.
